Issue 568

The Ministry of Burlesque

Preview

29 Jan 2007

More and more burlesque nights are setting their sights on Scotland. This fortnight, Ministry of Burlesque return with their ‘High Tease’, a mix of saucy cabaret and tongue in cheek striptease featuring the rather wonderful Kittie Klaw (pictured), Dusty…

The Horrors interview

Smoke & mirrors

30 Jan 2007

The Horrors are in need of a fag. Having had their ch ance for a nicotine fix disrupted by fans who are loitering outside The Caves in Edinburgh hoping for a glimpse of the band, they now find themselves upstairs experiencing first hand the realities of…

Simon Periton

The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 24 Feb

29 Jan 2007

WORK ON PAPER It is easy to find superficial anti-art and anti-aesthetic urges in Simon Periton’s spray painted collages and assemblages on show at The Modern Institute. The materials he takes his inspiration from appear to have been ripped from…

Fawlty Towers Experience

The hotel inspectors

31 Jan 2007

A swarthy waiter pursues a hamster beneath a table of dinner guests, chased by a tall, quiveringly angry man with a moustache. The diners erupt with laughter as the waiter re-emerges, accidentally displacing the wig on a female guest’s head. The furious…

Venice Biennale - who's going

Six of the best

30 Jan 2007

Congratulations to Charles Avery, Henry Coombes, Louise Hopkins, Rosalind Nashashibi, Lucy Skaer and Tony Swain, who have been selected to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale of Art, after months of deliberation. The Scottish show, which will…

Bevellers, The

The Bevellers

29 Jan 2007

REVIVAL No amount of ‘City of Culture’ or ‘Glasgow Smiles Better’ labels can conceal the stereotypical view of Scotland’s largest city. This less than perfect reputation runs deeper than sovereign-wearing bams swallying Buckie. As a follow up to…

Child Genius

Channel 4, Thu 8 Feb, 9pm

29 Jan 2007

DOCUMENTARY Most of us would like to have a few more brain cells than we currently have at our disposal. But who would really want an IQ of 170, putting us into the top 0.002% of the population? And what if we had that mental ability and were around…

Hold Steady, The

How swoon is now

29 Jan 2007

As timely dates go, The Hold Steady stomping their way through their set on Valentine’s Day is about as apposite as you can get.

Venice Biennale

The big four

29 Jan 2007

As one of the most varied line-ups that Scotland has presented at this year’s biennale, Doggerfisher’s Lucy Skaer, Rosalind Nashashibi, Louise Hopkins and Charles Avery will head out to the Scottish Palazzo Zenobio to make new work for their…

Xplicit

Bongo Club, Edinburgh, Fri 9 Feb; Glasgow School o

29 Jan 2007

DRUM & BASS By the age of two most of us were doing well. We could walk, run, talk and generally fend for ourselves. Xplicit, however, have surpassed us all. In their short existence they have become the country’s biggest drum & bass night with…

Venice Biennale

Six of the best

30 Jan 2007

Congratulations to Charles Avery, Henry Coombes, Louise Hopkins, Rosalind Nashashibi, Lucy Skaer and Tony Swain, who have been selected to represent Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale of Art, after months of deliberation. The Scottish show, which will…

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

Belle de Jour Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel’s brilliant 1964 satire of bourgeois sexual mores gets a brief outing in a new print. Witness the birth of arthouse porn. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 9 Feb-Wed 14 Feb only. Read review

David Diamante at Club Noir

Diamond geezer

29 Jan 2007

David Diamante is to modern British burlesque what Charlie Chaplin was to comedy - its Godfather, its energy and its salesman, but definitely not in a pushy double-glazing type way. The ‘product’ speaks for itself: ‘glamour’ is priceless and affordable…

Mika - album review

Mika

29 Jan 2007

POP Let’s play Spot the Influence. Queen! The Communards! Frankie Goes To Hollywood! Just when you’ve got Mika pinned as a retro-glam Hi NRG soundalike, he whaps the horns out for a Blur-ry knockabout caper on ‘Billy Brown’. Which sounds a bit like…

The Ministry of Burlesque presents High Tease

29 Jan 2007

CABARET Burlesque, a word used with some specificity by this six-year-old company, is a quite separate form from music hall or vaudeville although it has many traditions in common. Granted, many of the turns are the same - comics, singing, dancing…

Trenton Doyle Hancock: The Wayward Thinker

Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 10 Feb-Sun 8 A

29 Jan 2007

DRAWING AND INSTALLATION Fifty thousand years ago an ape man ejaculated into a field of flowers. His act culminated in the creation of the Mounds: part-human, part-plant mutants that have taken over one of the many parallel universes in artist…

* Hitlist - LGBT History Month

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

The Celluloid Closet A history of homo Hollywood, as told in this 1995 film based on Vito Russo’s book. From secretly gay actors like Rock Hudson (pictured, in Pillow Talk, where he played a straight man pretending to be gay to charm Doris Day’s…

Belle de Jour

(18) 99min

29 Jan 2007

RE-ISSUE The very great Spanish filmmaker and surrealist Luis Buñuel wrote in his fantastic autobiography My Last Breath that Belle de Jour was ‘my biggest commercial success, which I attribute more to the marvellous whores than to my direction.…

National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland - album review

National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland

29 Jan 2007

JAZZ The National Youth Orchestra of Scotland’s associated Jazz Orchestra has been around now for a decade, and issued a CD featuring the music of pianist Nikki Yeoh seven years ago. This second disc features two suites by Scottish composers at…

Various - Songs for the Young at Heart - album review

Various

29 Jan 2007

KIDS COMPILATION Nostalgia might not be what it once was, but in the Staples and Boulter households, the past is far from imperfect. Stuart and Dave, the guys from the Tindersticks, have lovingly recreated the songs they remembered from their radios…

Warren Ellis & Mike Deodato Jr - comic review

Warren Ellis & Mike Deodato Jr

29 Jan 2007

SUPERHERO Having run for the past few years as a fanboy-friendly graveyard for all of Marvel’s most colourful and perhaps least inspiring villains, this first issue of Warren Ellis’ tour of duty as writer promises to make it a title worth…

Niall Griffiths

Runt

15 Feb 2007

What a courageous writer Niall Griffiths is. In the seven years since his debut Grits - an ambitious and occasionally brilliant study of modern hedonism in West Wales - he has divined, deviated and experimented with a bravery that is only really…

Glasgow Film Festival - Cashback - Sean Biggerstaff interview

Money talks

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Sean Biggerstaff has just returned from the seventh annual British Film Festival in Israel where Cashback was screened simultaneously in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But though the film was well received, Biggerstaff wasn’t…

Glasgow Film Festival - Half Nelson - Ryan Gosling interview

School daze

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Named after a wrestling hold in which an opponent’s strengths are turned against themselves, the US indie Half Nelson is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Glasgow Film Festival. The directorial debut of Ryan Fleck, whose…

Glasgow Film Festival - horror movies

Day of the dead

31 Jan 2007

The all-day marathon is a right of passage for any horrorphile; a chance to wallow in the garish glory of the most extreme cinematic genres. For the second year, GFF features FrightFest in association with Zone Horror.

Glasgow Film Festival - John Wayne tribute

Shooting star

31 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Asked towards the end of his life why he had never written an autobiography John Wayne replied, ‘Those who like me already know me, and those who don’t like me wouldn’t want to read about me anyway.’ Modern day celebrities would…

Guy's Restaurant and Bar

Sweet and mellow

31 Jan 2007

When chef/proprietor Guy Cowan first opened his eponymous restaurant on North Street in December 2005, the basement premises with alcoves provided an intimate space which seemed tailor-made for dining. When he relocated across town last November to a…

Valentine's Day gift guide

Planning to surprise that special someone on the m

31 Jan 2007

1 Elemis Skin Treatment Voucher £45; Elemis Daily Moisture Boost for Men £25; Elemis Ice Cool Foam Gel £18. All available at Harvey Nichols, 30-34 St Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, 0131 524 8388

Cate Blanchett interview

Woman of note

30 Jan 2007

‘If I knew that my son’s art teacher was banging his brains out in the art room, I’d be in there with a meat cleaver.’ Cate Blanchett is reflecting on her new film, Notes on a Scandal, in which she plays an art teacher who has an affair with one of her…

Glasgow Film Festival - Cashback - Sean Biggerstaff interview

Money talks

30 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Sean Biggerstaff has just returned from the seventh annual British Film Festival in Israel where Cashback was screened simultaneously in Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But though the film was well received, Biggerstaff wasn’t…

Glasgow Film Festival - Half Nelson - Ryan Gosling interview

School daze

30 Jan 2007

GLASGOW FILM FESTIVAL Named after a wrestling hold in which an opponent’s strengths are turned against themselves, the US indie Half Nelson is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Glasgow Film Festival. The directorial debut of Ryan Fleck, whose…

Radio romance

BBC calls on budding authors to write more than a

30 Jan 2007

The Glasgow-based author Janice Galloway begins her short story ‘Valentine’ with a simple disclosure. ‘I hate February,’ she writes. ‘There is no natural excitement about the second month of the year. Valentine’s Day makes me embarrassed.’

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco The queen of Tartan Noir (as Mina probably hates being dubbed) makes her debut trip into graphic novels with Hellblazer: Empathy is the Enemy, which features the chain-smoking Constantine relocating to Glasgow.

* Hitlist

Hitlist

29 Jan 2007

NME Indie Rock The View, The Automatic (pictured), Mumm-Ra and The Horrors are this year’s would-be contenders for global rock stardom. Or a toddle back to indie obscurity. The choice is yours. Carling Academy, Glasgow, Thu 1 & Fri 2 Feb. (Rock & Pop…

Aereogramme

The Classic Grand, Glasgow, Mon 12 Feb

29 Jan 2007

EPIC ROCK If you’ve ever sniffed around the Scottish post-rock underground, you might be familiar with the work of Aereogramme, but, trust me, you won’t be familiar with this Aereogramme. Because, after two years out of the limelight, the band are…

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy - comic review

Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy

29 Jan 2007

LITERARY ADAPTATION Robert Louis Stevenson’s celebrated historical adventure doesn’t need pictures to enhance its power. But this graphic novel adaptation, produced as part of the One Book ?" One Edinburgh reading campaign, successfully captures the…

Anthony Swofford

Exit A (Simon & Schuster)

29 Jan 2007

MILITARY DRAMA It comes as no surprise that Anthony Swofford, a military base kid raised in the US and Japan, should set his debut work of fiction in that very same environment. After the success of the bestselling and critically acclaimed memoir…

Arthur and the Invisibles

(U) 93min

29 Jan 2007

ANIMATION/ADVENTURE If Luc Besson (The Big Blue, Leon) is to be believed, this, his tenth film, will also be his last as director. In adapting his own children’s book, Besson mixes live-action and CGI animation with decidedly patchy results. It’s…

Baby Balloon

Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 6-Sat 10 Feb; North Edi

29 Jan 2007

TODDLER THEATRE Parents sneaking out the door with a crying baby is a familiar sight at children’s theatre shows. Dragged along with an older sibling to a show too scary, confusing or just downright dull for tiny tots to endure, toddlers aren’t…

Birchville Cat Motel

Tremors@Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, Wed 10 Jan

29 Jan 2007

EXPERIMENTAL Last time Stills Gallery white-not-quite-cubed space played host to live music was in 1998, when Quebeçois baroque apocalypsists Godspeed You! Black Emperor marked their low-key live UK debut before a phone box capacity audience (ignore…

Caucasion Chalk Circle

Dundee Rep, until Sat 3 Feb

29 Jan 2007

CLASSIC We’ve got so wrapped up with having our own National Theatre in Scotland that we’ve been apt to forget of recent times that there’s also a pretty formidable one south of the border, still obliged by its remit to visit us once in a while. The…

Charlotte's Web

(U) 96min

29 Jan 2007

As a farmyard community story, EB White’s much loved kids story fits somewhere between cutesy fantasy Babe and Orwell’s bleak political parable Animal Farm, with cheery talking animals sugar-coating a bittersweet finale that touches on practical matters…

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco - comic review

Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco

29 Jan 2007

HORROR Bitter mage John Constantine makes his way to Scotland, as crime writer Denise Mina (Field of Blood/The Dead Hour) makes her first foray into comics, bringing Constantine onto her home territory, Glasgow, the setting for most of her mystery…

Desert Hearts - album review

Desert Hearts

29 Jan 2007

INDIE ROCK Once upon a time indie-bands had ideas and balls. But the current trend for nadger-crushingly tight jeans seems to have put a stop to that. Giving a slap to stage school rockers and banning the keyboards from the rehearsal rooms are…

Dreamgirls

(12A) 130min

29 Jan 2007

DRAMA/MUSICAL Dreamgirls has made Oscar history and the ceremony hasn’t even taken place yet. It is, allegedly, the first picture to have the most Academy Award nominations in a given year and still not be nominated for Best Picture. And, for once…

DVD Round-up

29 Jan 2007

Shy, prone to stage sickness, deep depression and melancholia the British comedian Frankie Howerd was still the funniest man ever tp have been born in the city of York, England. A brilliant, stammering pontificate of a stand-up comedian, Howerd’s talent…

Grand Illusion, La - DVD review

La Grand Illusion

29 Jan 2007

WAR After La Grande Illusion won a prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1937, the Nazis declared it ‘cinematic enemy number one’, and when Germany invaded France a couple of years later Goebbels had prints of the film destroyed. Jean Renoir’s…

Hedrons, The - album review

The Hedrons

29 Jan 2007

ROCK Impressive influences do not a great band make . . . Towers of London alone are proof of that. This lot could teach them a thing or two, however, as, although they clearly worship at the alters of Hole, Blondie, Joan Jett and Ramones, the…

Joe Zawinul - album review

Joe Zawinul

29 Jan 2007

JAZZ A feast for Weather Report devotees, and a treat for anyone who just likes top quality big band playing. Joe Zawinul celebrated the 25th anniversary of the break-up of Weather Report in glorious style in this concert with the excellent WDR Big…

John Huston retrospective

A drunken god

29 Jan 2007

The prolific, gifted and deeply eccentric writer/director John Huston preferred to think that ‘God is not dead, just drunk.’ It’s a cute quote, which fits in with the air of Irish whimsy that Huston attempted to generate around himself and his uprooted…